2013-14 Men's & Women's Basketball I Women vs UNC - L 58-65

#4 Women's Basketball (28-5, 14-2):

Coaches:

Dawn Staley - Head Coach
Lisa Boyer - Associate Head Coach
Nikki McCray - Assistant Coach
Darius Taylor - Assistant Coach
Ariana Moore - Special Assistant to Head Coach

Roster:

0 India Farmer F
2 Olivia Gaines G
5 Khadijah Sessions G
12 Wilka Montout F
15 Tiffany Davis G
21 LeAnna Morrison G
23 Tina Roy G
24 Aleighsa Welch F
25 Tiffany Mitchell G
31 Asia Dozier G/F
33 Elem Ibiam C
41 Alaina Coates C

Schedule:

Date - Opponent - Result/Time (EST) - TV (if any)

Nov 8 - Charleston Southern - W 99-29
Nov 10 - Louisiana Tech - W 68-45
Nov 14 - College of Charleston - W 81-54
Nov 17 - Seton Hall - W 88-67
Nov 20 - @ Clemson - W 68-43
Nov 23 - @ San Diego State - W 88-54
Nov 25 - @ Southern California - W 70-50

Dec 2 - North Carolina Central - W 79-27
Dec 8 - @ Charlotte - W 76-61
Dec 18 - vs. #14 North Carolina - L 66-74
Dec 20 - Winthrop - W 69-61
Dec 22 - South Carolina State - W 70-26
Dec 28 - Savannah State - W 82-40

Jan 2 - @ Arkansas* - W 55-51
Jan 5 - Vanderbilt* - W 76-66
Jan 9 - #9 Kentucky* - W 68-59
Jan 12 - @ Auburn* - W 72-66
Jan 16 - @ #25 Texas A&M* - L 65-67
Jan 19 - Alabama* - W 77-51
Jan 26 - @ #16 Vanderbilt* - W 61-57
Jan 30 - Ole Miss* - W 99-70

Feb 2 - Missouri* - W 78-62
Feb 6 - @ Mississippi State* - W 71-64
Feb 9 - Arkansas* - W 67-49
Feb 16 - @ #19 LSU* - W 73-57
Feb 20 - @ #15 Kentucky* - W 81-58
Feb 23 - Florida* - W 69-55
Feb 27 - Georgia* - W 67-56

Mar 2 - @ #10 Tennessee* - L 61-73

SEC Tournament:

Mar 7 - vs. Georgia - W 67-48
Mar 8 - vs. Kentucky - L 58-68

NCAA Tournament:

Mar 23 - vs. (16) Cal State Northridge - W 73-58
Mar 25 - vs. (9) Oregon State - W 78-69
Mar 30 - vs. (4) North Carolina - L 58-65

* - Indicates SEC Conference Game
Home Games are in Bold

Women going up to Clemson tonight.

Heard it's supposed to be a decent amount on the baseball/basketball front. But it remains to be seen.

quote:

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Women going up to Clemson tonight.

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They played a sloppy first half, but I expect them to turn it on when they come out of the locker room like they have all season ... hopefully.

Taterheads gonna tater, go Cocks!

Good for the girls

Women going cross country today to SDSU.

Altho no one here will probably watch it here's a place you can watch it at if you wanted to check in on a score: LINK

Our defense may be a step down from the past 2 seasons - and I only say this knowing that we have a lot of younger, less-experienced players at the guard positions. The past 3 seasons we had upperclassmen in Sutton, Grant, and Walker all who were underrated (I know Walker was the lone 4*) ferocious perimeter defenders, and Sanchion White was as well.

They have been replaced with the Super Sophomores Sessions, Mitchell, and Dozier who are mostly starting for the first time this season, in addition to Roy and Davis who missed last season mostly due to injuries. These girls are a huge upgrade in talent are longer, bigger bodies mostly with the 5-9 Mitchell, 5-10 Dozier, 5-11 Roy.

But the offensive talent is seeing a huge upgrade along with the obvious upgrade in depth of height in the interior. Tonight vs SDSU the opponent utilized a packed zone in the paint to choke off the talented Welch, Ibiam, and Coates, and make USC beat them from the interior. With the talent we have in those girls, most opponents have and will show a lot of zone this season, but were SDSU really aggressive with theirs under the basket.

Our typical scoring leaders this season struggled to find scoring opportunities under the basket and also struggled with rebounding. Welch had 8 pts and 4 rebs, Ibiam had 5 pts and 4 rebs. In past seasons, if opposing defenses choked off Sutton, Grant, Bruner, or Walker we'd be in great trouble to win the games because we depended on those girls to carry the load so much...

But our Super Sophs - Mitchell, Sessions, and Dozier, all talented 4* players from the 2012 recruiting class that's about to get forgotten in the hype and excitement of this 2014 class that's incoming - stepped up and made some noise. Dozier shot 4-10 from the arc and scored 16 pts. Sessions added 2-5 from the arc and scored 12 pts along with 5 assists and 4 steals. But Mitchell topped them both with 17 pts, 9 assists, and 3 steals. They made the SDSU zone defense pay.

Coates was also shut down at first, and got into early foul trouble. She only had 4 pts and 3 rebs in the 1st half, and 2 fouls. Then USC figured out that they could throw little lob-passes over the out-stretched hands of the SDSU zone D to Coates, and she could either quickly layup for baskets, or more likely get fouled. In the final 9:23 of the game, Coates took 15 foul shots - half the team's total of 31 - and make 11 of them, to finish as the game's leading scorer with 21 pts, to go with 8 boards, also the game high.

USC has 4 players thus far with solid dbl-digit point averages:

Coates: 13.8
Welch: 13.5
Mitchell: 13.2
Ibiam: 12.2

plus Sessions and Dozier who are both capable of scoring 10+ pts in a given game (they are averaging 9.7 and 8.8 respectively). That's offense un-heard of under Coach Staley at USC. So while the defense may have a slight drop-off from the nationally elite D of the past 2-3 seasons, it'll still be solid to stout defense as any Staley team will have. But we won't NEED our defense to be elite to keep ourselves in the big games for the foreseeable future...

SoCal is 3-1: they lost their last game to #20 Okie State 81-52. We are around Okie State's caliber at this point, I guess. SoCal beat SDSU in their 3rd gm of the season 65-61, and we just beat them by 34 pts...

Johnson
Thornwell
Carrera
Kacinas
Henry

are todays starting 5.

Glad to see Jaylen Shaw ballin' today he's been an absolute beast today. We seem to play a ton better in the zone on defense instead of man to man for sure.

Also nice to see us hit shots from 3 for once & hitting the layups inside, much better offensive performance today.